food destinations #3: my favorite chocolate shop

Allow me to introduce you to my dealer: Bittersweet CafÃ©, readers, readers, Bittersweet CafÃ©. Bittersweet is a chocolate shop and cafÃ© in Oakland and San Francisco. It’s a cozy place to have a cup of coffee, or satiate your chocolate craving.

While many chocolate shops concentrate on truffles and confections, Bittersweet offers a wide selection of high quality chocolate bars. The bars at Bittersweet are displayed on shelves, according to category and ascending levels of cocoa solids. First the white chocolate bars (really just vanilla-flavored cocoa butter), then the milk chocolate, the flavored chocolates (Mayan style, ginger, lavender, etc.), the dark chocolates, and the hardcore baking chocolates. I like a good dark chocolate truffle now and then, but I prefer a bar with a high percentage of cocoa solids for everyday consumption. I like my chocolate intense and flavorful, not necessarily sweet, so I usually head straight for the dark and baking sections.

Among my favorite bars:

Hachez Premier Cru, 88%—A creamy-textured, slightly berry-like chocolate that’s fun to eat.
Domori Puro, 100%—Very intense, dark and strong, almost coffee-like in flavor. A little goes a long way, half a square is usually enough for me. Although this bar has no sugar, it’s still a little sweet and delicious on its own. This is the kind of chocolate you want to eat slowly while sitting in your favorite chair and maybe sipping a cognac. Actually, skip the cognac. Who needs cognac when you have chocolate this good?
Santander Dark, 70%—A smooth, creamy bar that tastes of kahlua, but contains no coffee liqueur.
Dolfin Noir 88% de Cacao—An intense, yet smooth bar. I particularly like the tobacco pouch packaging, no fiddly foil to gently open only to rip to shreds when you try to re-package the rest to save for later.

In addition to bars, Bittersweet offers all manner of chocolate goods and knick-knacks, such as wooden gift boxes filled with a variety of chocolates, books about chocolate, CDs by a band called the Bittersweets, drinking chocolate and cocoa, and cocoa butter chapstick (“chocolate for your lips”).

Of course the requisite t-shirts bearing the store’s logo are fetchingly displayed as well.

Once you’ve picked out your take-home goods, you can order a hot drink and a little something to go with it.

My favorite drink is the Bittersweet:a hot drinking chocolate prepared without milk. Rich, smooth, and not too sweet, the Bittersweet is truly a balm for the soul on a cold day. I can never finish it at one go, as it’s so intense. I often refrigerate the remainder and eat it later as a sort of chocolate pudding.

Bittersweet’s excellence in all things chocolate is only exceeded by their friendly, knowledgeable staff. Every employee I’ve spoken to at Bittersweet knows their chocolate, and is thoughtful enough to consult a fellow staff-member if they don’t. Most employees enjoy sampling the goods, so they can guide you in choosing a bar that suits your tastes. One staffer once took the time to explain the rules of thumb in finding chocolates produced without the abominable use of slavery (cocoa grown on family-owned plantations, cocoa grown in South America as opposed to certain regions of West Africa).

I especially appreciate the staff’s accommodation of my picture-snapping today. I really do try to be unobtrusive, but people eventually notice that you’re the only idiot in the shop taking pictures of chocolate. They were enthusiastic when I told them about the Food Destinations chocolate blogging event and we started talking a bit about foodblogging. When I commented on both baristas’ lovely henna-painted hands, I got into an interesting conversation about the ancient Egyptian art of henna hand painting with new employee and henna artist Silvana. That’s just the kind of place Bittersweet is.